


Ten thousand roads to run away

by maharetr



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 01:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13602804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharetr/pseuds/maharetr
Summary: They find him in a stasis pod in the wreck of a war boy ship.





	Ten thousand roads to run away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ardentaislinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentaislinn/gifts).



> Title from Sarah Ramey's song _If I be wrong_.
> 
> A hundred thanks to M, for the betaing and handholding. All mistakes are my own, etc.

Capable takes third shift, and Furiosa drags herself back to her cabin, takes off her arm, and falls into bed.

She sleeps through almost all of third shift – a restless but still uninterrupted eight hours of relative quiet –before Toast comes knocking.

“There’s something up ahead. We’re about fifteen minutes from audio intercept.”

Furiosa gets herself up. She’s tired, still, but she can’t complain at eight hours uninterrupted quiet, or about the fifteen minutes grace. The war boys had never given her that.

Capable is studying the scanners intently when Furiosa enters the cockpit. There’s nothing out the windows yet. Furiosa tightens the last of the buckles of her arm.

“What do you see?” 

Capable’s lips are pursed slightly in concentration. “I think it’s wreckage – the shapes are weird; too weird for a meteor cluster, even.” She turns the monitor to give Furiosa a look.

Now it came down to why there was a war boy ship out ahead of them. It was a lucky jump on the war boys’ part, guesstimating where the _War Rig_ was going to head, and getting there first. As to why it was in pieces… either they’d self-destructed on the news of Immortan Joe not being so immortal, and tried to follow him into Valhalla, or…

“I don’t see any hostiles,” Capable murmurs, pre-empting the question. Still, Furiosa opens a broadcast channel and unclips the transmitter.

“This an open call,” she says. “This is the _War Rig_. The Citadel fleet has been destroyed. We offer safe passage if we receive safe passage. If we are fired upon we will retaliate.” Their actual arsenal is low, but no one in this solar system has realised that yet; the _War Rig_ ’s reputation precedes them on the memory of Immortan Joe’s lethality. 

There’s nothing but silence. The shapes are getting steadily larger on the scanner.

“Head for it?” Capable asks.

Furiosa nods. If it isn’t a buzzard attack, there’ll be good scrap and parts for the selling. If it _is_ a buzzard attack, they might be able to scare the rogue ships off and take the better spoils anyway. Capable guides them in.

Buzzard attack or willing Valhalla trip, the results are the same: the first frozen bodies float into view about twenty minutes later. 

The last of the crew have felt their altered course and wandered up, The Dag from her plants and Cheedo and Toast from their respective quarters. The Dag hisses softly under her breath. The wreck has both been blown apart from within and blown apart ineptly – there’s still a fair amount of intact hull, which is encouraging for salvage. Capable starts tying up her hair, the first step of her suit-up. Furiosa steps forward, ready to take the helm.

Capable freezes, her hands still in her hair, staring down at the monitors.

“We’ve got life here,” she says.

“Computer’s still functional?” Furiosa asks. That’s really good news.

“On backup power, yeah,” Capable says. “And also –” She turns the screen and stabs at it with her finger. “Literal life. There’s a functional stasis pod in there.”

“War boy,” The Dag hisses, but there’s less bite to it than there used to be. Not since Nux. Furiosa leans over Capable’s shoulder, and rests her hand there on the way – a gentle squeeze of acknowledgement. Capable covers Furiosa’s hand with her own, and they watch the screen together.

“Any intel on who it is?” 

Capable types and shakes her head. “Nothing. Vital signs are within normal for someone in cryo. Blood pressure kinda low, maybe.”

Furiosa stares at the readout. “Is the pod self-contained enough that we can bring it out intact and functional?”

“That depends on Cheedo’s surgery skills.” Capable pulls up more specs, and Cheedo scrolls through them, and nods. 

“I can detach that,” she says. “And we’ve got the portables that I can bring it aboard before it thaws too much.” Cheedo raises an eyebrow at Furiosa. “If we want whoever this is, that is.” 

Furiosa pauses. “Give it a go,” she says at last. Capable and Cheedo head out to suit up, and The Dag follows to spot them.

Toast waits until they’re gone, reaches out and touches Furiosa’s left wrist – not a hold, just a touch, and Furiosa exhales impatiently, but looks up at her.

“You thinking clearly about this one?” Toast asks, her voice low.

“You questioning my command?”

“Always.” Toast’s grin is a quick, wry flash. Then she sobers. “Saving some rando isn’t going to bring Angharad back.”

“I _know_ that. But would she want to leave someone to die?”

“To keep the rest of us safe? Yeah, yeah she would.”

“What if it was another Nux?”

Toast closes her mouth and grimaces. “Maybe,” she allows.

Furiosa raises an eyebrow and allows herself a quirk of smile of her own. “Functional cryo pods are worth a _lot_ ,” she points out. “If this persons’s completely space-fucked, you get to shoot them, and tell me you told me so.”

Toast snorts, and holds out her fist. They bump on it, and Furiosa turns back to keep a close eye on the monitors.

~*~

It’s not a war boy – it’s a blood bag, of all things. A man with dark stubble and pale skin under layers of cryo fluid and grime. They ease him out of the pod and carry him and his medical attachments into the med bay on the gurney.

The mask over his face is breathing for him, and it’s a tense minute when they draw the tube out of his throat before he starts breathing on his own. 

“He should be out for hours yet,” The Dag murmurs, and starts wiping cryo fluid off his back. Then she starts making inroads on the layers of grime and filth. It’s not just grease that’s marking his skin, Furiosa realises. The Dag is exposing lines of tattoo smeared with age and stasis stints.

 _Captured from ship Interceptor – Scrapped_ says one blurred line. The important details, they’d given him touch-ups for:

 _Full life_ , the sharp lettering says. _Universal donor_.

“That’s why they kept him,” Cheedo says. “He’s valuable enough to shunt around the Citadel fleet, with blood like that.”

There’s his epidermis bio-chip on the nape of his neck, of course, but Immortan Joe hadn’t cared about the history of his captured subjects – the data on the chip had been corrupted by the searing brand. Joe had never gone for subtlety, or for leaving his property unmarked when he could piss on them instead.

Toast cocks her head. “What do you think –”

The blood bag wakes _fast_ , scrabbling and slipping on the table, and then lunging onto the floor. Furiosa moves without thinking: gets her arms hooked under his armpits from behind, locks both hands behind his head, forcing his head down and his arms impotently wide.

They’re locked together, staggering, trying to find separate balances, but he’s trying to flail with immobilised arms, and trying to find a footing with cryo-slicked bare feet, and she braces her legs and lets him thrash helplessly. He tires fast. Her face is already by his head; all she has to do is open her mouth to growl directly into his ear. 

“You are on _my_ ship, by my grace. If you touch any of my crew, I will fucking break your neck, you understand?” She relaxes her grip just enough to let him move his head. 

He nods.

“Good,” she says. “You gonna freak out if I let you go?”

He shakes his head. She eases her grip off slightly to see if he’ll get his feet under him. He slides to the floor like his legs no longer work. She strides back in case it’s a ruse, but all he manages is to roll onto his back and look up at her.

“Imperator,” he pants. It’s a clear-eyed look, not the drug-fucked glaze the war boys would offer her. It never paid to look startled in front of her war boys – she doesn’t startle now. He sits up very cautiously. “Imperator Furiosa.” He bobs his head in a little bow of sorts, then winces.

“We picked you up out of a war boys’ troop carrier, number A1779,” Furiosa says. “Who are you?”

He looks around at last, registering each of the crew. “You’re the wives,” he whispers, wonderingly.

“Widows,” Toast spits immediately. “We outlived that fucker. We _murdered_ that fucker.”

"That’s… that’s very good news to wake up to.” He smiles, exhaustedly and almost disbelievingly around at them all. “You made them all very angry. It’s an honour to meet you all.” His eyes drift closed again.

__Furiosa glances around at her crew. Capable wags an upright thumb, her fingers lightly curled. Toast is looking at him with a contemplative, considering little smile that said she didn’t think airlock, not yet. The Dag catches Furiosa’s eye and nods over Cheedo’s head. Cheedo… Cheedo is still in the The Dag’s embrace, watching their interloper with narrowed eyes and tight lips._ _

__Furiosa tries to catch Cheedo’s eye – if there’s doubt, they’re going to need to sort it out somewhere outside the blood bag’s hearing. But Cheedo is thinking differently._ _

__“They pulled you out of a ship,” she says. He opens his eyes and twists to meet her gaze before he nods. “You know how to suit up and float out?” He nods again, and otherwise keeps perfectly still. Cheedo looks around at the rest of them._ _

__“He can wear Angharad’s suit. He harvests with us, and sleeps in the cargo bay. If he’s not dead or space fucked by the time we go planet-side to sell…” Her shrug says she thinks this is unlikely, but that they could cross that bridge when they come to it._ _

__The blood bag nods attentively, like this is somehow a reasonable deal. _Fool_ , Furiosa thinks. But Capable’s thumbs up is a steady, firm fist now, and Toast is nodding with her little smile._ _

__The blood bag looks back at Furiosa, and there’s that attentive deference again. She finds herself straightening up under that look, like there’s a whole other level of command she hadn’t realised she was holding._ _

__“What are you funding?” he asks, and maybe this fool isn’t so space fucked after all._ _

__“Fuel for an FTL jump,” Furiosa allows, because it’s true, but it could also be to anywhere at all._ _

__“Where are you going?” he asks, and that’s a truly foolish question. Toast answers for them._ _

__“Away,” she says, softly, contemplatively. It’s the right answer, apparently – his eyes light up and his body relaxes, all at once._ _

__“You want in on that, Fool?” Furiosa asks. It’s not strictly necessary, but words are bonds, after all._ _

__“Yes,” he says, ducking his head in a little nod. “Yes, I would.” He’s starting to shiver in earnest. Capable gets him a blanket, and he startles when she drapes it around his shoulders, then folds under it like it’s an immense weight._ _

__“Do you have a name?” Furiosa asks. So many space-fucked people had forgotten theirs. He stares blankly at her, and then he slumps to the left, and keeps slumping all the way to the floor, his eyes falling closed with it._ _

__~*~_ _

__Capable goes off to rewire the lock mechanism on Angharad’s room. They’re going to have to stop calling it her quarters eventually but not… not yet._ _

__Furiosa keeps watch over their new, deeply-asleep resident. She spreads out her maintenance kit, takes off her prosthetic arm and starts working on it from the elbow down, testing the mechanics. The Fool’s fingers twitch in far more restless sympathy._ _

__By the time she’s tightening the finger mechanisms, his breathing is hitching, and he whimpers. She puts down her arm and rests her hand on the blaster by her side. He wakes with an aborted gasp, body locked. He stares at her, his eyes wide with fear._ _

__“Hello, Fool,” she says._ _

__Recognition dawns across his face, closely followed by confusion._ _

__“You’re still here,” he rasps. He looks around the med bay, wonderingly, then mutters under his breath: “ _I’m_ still here.”_ _

__“Yes,” Furiosa says. “You’re on the _War Rig_ , minus any war boys.”_ _

__Raising his head had clearly been a lot of effort; he falls back onto the pillow, but he keeps eye contact with her._ _

__“Will you be here, later?”_ _

__“Yes,” she says. Damn her word, but here she is, again: _yes, you can come with me. Yes, I will try and keep you safe, yes…_ The screwdriver slips, and the screw skitters away across the floor. Damnit. She doesn’t get up to retrieve it; she switches to the next prosthetic finger, and stays sitting in his field of vision._ _

__~*~_ _

__The Dag comes in a while later, bringing hot food for Furiosa and her charge. Furiosa puts her arm aside, and takes the plate and fork with a grateful smile. The Fool stares at the plate The Dag puts by his bed. His eyes are so wide Furiosa puts her hand back over her weapon._ _

__“It’s potato salad,” The Dag says. “Well, potato and protein goop and greens, anyway.” The Fool sits up, still staring at the plate. His hands shaking, he reaches out and touches a spinach leaf, wonderingly._ _

__“You can eat it,” The Dag says. “I made it myself.”_ _

__He looks back up at Furiosa, an overwhelmed question in his reddened eyes._ _

__“Eat some,” Fuirosa says gently. “And we’ll show you.”_ _

__~*~_ _

__He stares and stares at the rows of hydroponic plants._ _

__“ _How_?” he manages. “ _Where_?”_ _

__“The Keeper of the Seeds,” The Dag says, and they all, as one, reach out and make the gesture of remembering. “She kept them, and carried them until she couldn’t anymore, and then she gave them to us.”_ _

__His gaze flicks over all of them, a wary checking._ _

__“She gave them? Or you took them?”_ _

__“Gave,” Furiosa says, with a little bite. He nods, a tiny acquiescence, almost an apology._ _

__“The plants make seeds,” The Dag explains. “And then we can grow more from them.”_ _

__The Fool nods. “I remember,” he says, softly. He lightly touches the wicking fibre surrounding the roots of a tomato plant. “I remember soil, dirt.” He’s looking at his nails like he remembers dirt under them._ _

__“You’re planet born,” Cheedo says. He nods again._ _

__“A … a lifetime ago. Yes.”_ _

__“Do you remember?” Furiosa asks, gently. Repeated stasis sessions did…things to people. Never mind the repeated blood loss. His eyes drift closed._ _

__“Breathable air,” he says, softly. “Water. An _ocean_ of water.” The tiniest of exhausted smiles twitches his lips. “Green things.”_ _

__“That counts out most of this solar system,” Toast says, not meanly. He nods. The smile slips from his face._ _

__“There isn’t any…” He shakes his head a little, eyes still closed. “Phonecea,” he breathes. “We were born on Phonecea.”_ _

__No amount of years commanding war boys can hold back that flinch. Even Toast’s eyes are wide.  
Phonecea: the first planet Immortan Joe had plundered to the bone in his quest to brand the universe in his image._ _

__“We killed him,” Furiosa says. It is the tiniest of bright spots in the face of immense loss – the loss of a homeworld, but… “We hunted him down, and I ripped his respirator off his face. He died alone and in pain.”_ _

__The Fool inclines his head, a wordless thanks._ _

__“Who is your ‘we’?” Capable asks, very softly._ _

__“Jessie,” he whispers. “And our baby, Sprog.”_ _

__The tenderness, and the sadness in his voice has Furiosa reaching out and drawing their names to her heart, too._ _

__“Sprog’s a good name,” The Dag says._ _

__“He was a good kid,” The Fool whispers, thickly. He opens his eyes, and glances at each of them in turn. “It’s… It’s been a very long time, hasn’t it?”_ _

__Time is a messy concept out in the black, never mind between planets of different orbits, but… Furiosa nods. “Thousands upon thousands of sols.”_ _

__He does not flinch. He exhales and sways with weariness._ _

__“How much were you awake for?” Toast asks, and she’s nearly gentle._ _

__“Too much of it,” he rasps. “Way too fucking much.”_ _

__~*~_ _

__They show him to Angharad’s quarters, and he’s exhausted enough to just curl up in the stripped bunk and pass out again. Furiosa doubts he even notices they’ve locked him in._ _

__“Being fucked over just as badly by Immortan and the war boys doesn’t make him someone we want to keep around, necessarily,” Toast says. They’ve decamped to the communal area, sprawling over the couches and chairs._ _

__“It does make him an unnecessary death,” The Dag says, casually. “If we do decide to bump him off.”_ _

__“I didn’t say I wanted _that_ ,” Toast snaps._ _

__Furiosa quells them both with a look. “Anyone flat want him off our ship?”_ _

__Cheedo shakes her head._ _

__“I like him,” Capable volunteers from the other couch. “Let’s see how he works.”_ _

__~*~_ _

__He wakes early in first shift, and politely waits for someone to notice and let him out._ _

__It becomes apparent fast, regardless of accepted terms, that The Fool is in no shape to do anything as strenuous as go outside. He passes Cheedo’s verbal test when she drills him on suit parts and readout interpretations, but his hands are shaking too much for him to operate the touch screen wrist comms. Capable and Cheedo float out alone._ _

__“Engine’s not taking anyone anywhere,” Capable reports, her voice echoing around the storage bay. The Fool looks up at the ceiling, and then the walls, and Furiosa thinks for a moment he’s trying to see where Capable is, and then realises he’s eyeballing the space._ _

__“Ask her how much they could bring back,” The Fool says. “I can strip it down to parts, and make us good salvage.”_ _

__He makes good on his word. They bring him a sofa from the communal area, and between bouts of lying flat, he takes apart the jagged wreck of the engine, scrubs the working pieces, and sorts the rest into scrap categories. He probably would have kept working absorbedly into second shift if The Dag hadn’t shoved a meal into his hands, and then Furiosa hadn’t ordered him to out of the cargo bay to rest._ _

__~*~_ _

__The necessities of piloting the _War Rig_ means that there always needs to be someone awake and alert, but that didn’t always mean there was someone _around_ They quietly massage their shifts and their duties to make sure there’s always someone not just piloting, but also someone watching their passenger._ _

__The shift when The Fool makes a break for it, that someone happens to be Furiosa. The Fool shorts out the lock on Angharad’s quarters and creeps down the corridor with a bag over his shoulder. Furiosa follows. He’s quiet, but he’s been aboard less than five sols, and she’s spent three thousand sols learning every inch of this ship; in bare feet, she is quieter._ _

__The Fool makes his way past the rest of her crew’s quarters without a second glance. He hesitates half a beat outside Furiosa’s door, and she wonders at that, but then he walks on. He bypasses the corridor to the engine room, and keeps going._ _

__He lets himself into the emergency shuttle with only the slightest of fumbling at the access hatch. He ducks into the shuttle itself, getting his bearings, and Furiosa ducks in behind. It’s not a large space, but he’s very focussed on the cockpit – even if she hadn’t ducked into a seating alcove, she’s not sure he would have noticed her._ _

__The Fool sits down at the shuttle console, and sighs a little in apparent pleasure. He brushes his hands over the panels of switches and buttons. His hands have been growing steadier with days of rest and food, but this is an added level of deft, delicate touch._ _

__He wakes the on-board computer, remotely closes the hatch, and starts flicking the switches to prime the engines. The shuttle hums warmly in response to his touch, and Furiosa starts counting in her head._ _

__At five exactly, the computer display goes dark, and the engines cut out._ _

__“The fuck…?” he mutters. He reboots everything, quicker this time, and the kill switch kicks in again, exactly as programmed._ _

__“Fuck,” he chokes, his voice strangled with tears. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”_ _

__Furiosa brushes her fingers over her weapon, but doesn’t draw it. She steps out of the alcove._ _

__“Where were you taking our shuttle, Fool?” Furiosa asks._ _

__He jumps so hard he nearly smashes his head on the cockpit ceiling. He can’t wheel around in the seat, but he can contort himself to twist well enough to see her, and he does, eyes huge with adrenaline and fear._ _

__Furiosa sits on the nearest seat, rests her chin in her prosthetic palm, and smiles. “Where were we going?”_ _

__It takes a few seconds of mouth-contorting and stammering before he can make a sentence. “Sionru, probably.”_ _

__It makes sense, it’s the closest in range. But. “This is a short-hop shuttle, and that’s a big gamble for small fuel tanks, even for a really good pilot.” It’s half a question, half-statement; she can see how comfortable he is in the pilot’s seat. “Even odds that you’d die out there. And deprive us of a perfectly good shuttle.”_ _

__He has the grace to look abashed. He half-opens his mouth. “I –”_ _

__“Or,” she says. “Or you can land safely on Sionru in another few days, with us, having earned your share of a harvest that you’ve worked damn hard on, and be free and clear.”_ _

__He grimaces and avoids her gaze. “Yeah,” he mutters._ _

__“So why are we in my escape shuttle?”_ _

__He shrugs, hunching in on himself in the process. “It’s good,” he mutters. She arches an eyebrow. “This –” He waves his fingers, managing to encompass the entire ship in a clasp of his hand. “This is good. Good doesn’t…good doesn’t last.” He raises his gaze to hers. “May as well get out before it all goes to shit.”_ _

__“Good doesn’t last,” Furiosa counters. “ _Nothing_ lasts. May as well hold onto it while you’ve got it.” She reaches out her right hand and clasps his. He startles, and then clings tight. She takes a breath, and takes a plunge._ _

__“We’re going for a lot more than one FTL jump,” she says, softly. “We’re going in search of my Green Place, my home planet. Maybe it’s gone, too. But we’re going to go looking together; you can come too, if you want.”_ _

__He stares searchingly at her. This must have been what Capable felt like, coming across Nux, lost and desperate and stowing away in their hold. Furiosa closes the already narrow gap between them and rests their foreheads together._ _

__“You don’t have to be alone anymore,” she whispers._ _

__“I want...” He swallows. “I’d like that.”_ _

__Furiosa smiles. “Not such a fool after all, then.”_ _

__“Max,” he mutters. “My name is Max.”_ _

__“That’s a good name,” she says._ _

__She tugs him to his feet, and they go back into the ship together._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Dear ardentaislinn! I feel like I should apologise a little for not actually shipping them outright. It was the summary line that hit me first, and I wrote from there, but the more I wrote, and wrote, the more I realised that this Max was not yet in the space for a relationship (cue cursing from both author and recipient, I fear!) I think he wiould be soon, but the deadline loomed far closer. I hope there's things here for you to enjoy, despite that. <3


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